Ancient Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times. This web site is my attempt to document, from my perspective, these "interesting times".

Sunday, April 24, 2005

Paranoia Strikes Deep

You want to know the full measure of fear that the Bush administration
instills in people? Read
this story about how the administration has blackballed Kerry supporters
from an international conference on telecommunication standards:

The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission meets three times a year in
various cities across the Americas to discuss such dry but important issues
as telecommunications standards and spectrum regulations. But for this
week's meeting in Guatemala City, politics has barged onto the agenda. At
least four of the two dozen or so U.S. delegates selected for the meeting,
sources tell TIME, have been bumped by the White House because they
supported John Kerry's 2004 campaign.

The State Department has traditionally put together a list of industry
representatives for these meetings, and anyone in the U.S. telecom industry
who had the requisite expertise and wanted to go was generally given a slot,
say past participants. Only after the start of Bush's second term did a
political litmus test emerge, industry sources say.

The White House admits as much: "We wanted people who would represent the
Administration positively, and--call us nutty--it seemed like those who
wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would have some
difficulty doing that," says White House spokesman Trent Duffy. Those barred
from the trip include employees of Qualcomm and Nokia, two of the largest
telecom firms operating in the U.S., as well as Ibiquity, a
digital-radio-technology company in Columbia, Md. One nixed participant, who
has been to many of these telecom meetings and who wants to remain
anonymous, gave just $250 to the Democratic Party. Says Nokia vice president
Bill Plummer: "We do not view sending experts to international meetings on
telecom issues to be a partisan matter. We would welcome clarification from
the White House."

Now, the paranoia that pervades the administration is evident. I mean, these
are bunch of telecommunication geeks getting together! Hardly the place where
you are likely to see plans for a political coup.

But the real evidence of fear in this article is the fact that one of the
blackballed individuals isn't even willing to go on the record about what is
being done to him/her! Why? Could it be they fear even greater reprisals if they
complain publicly?